Map 1 Modern Greece and its neighbors.
For this reason, the land shown in map 2 has no boundaries marked. That is, it is not what is called a
“political map” like map 1. Rather, it is a “physical map” showing the most prominent topographical
features of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea, with terrain at higher levels represented by
correspondingly darker shades. The Aegean Sea separates two land masses, that to the east being
occupied today by the country of Turkey and that to the west by the modern country of Greece. In addition,
there is a large number of islands strewn over the Aegean Sea, most of which are now part of Greece, as
they have been since ancient times. It is this region, consisting of the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula
and the Aegean islands, along with a narrow strip of land along the western coast of what is now Turkey,
that represents what the Greeks considered to be their homeland throughout antiquity. It is important to
understand the character of that homeland because the geography and climate of Greece and the Aegean
represent the one constant in Greek civilization. It is also clear that the physical characteristics of the land
in which the Greeks lived have to some extent influenced the way in which their civilization developed.